1 the business café dr. gilly salmon open university business school uk
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1
The Business Café
Dr. Gilly Salmon
Open University Business School
UK
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Open University Business School
• 25,000 Business and Management Students in Europe
• Distance Learning: online, print, broadcast and face to face seminars
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Context for the Business Café Project
• Long standing relationship between OU and BBC
• TV shows and Video produced for teaching but large non-OU audience
• Experiment in understanding wider business audience
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The Business Café concept- integrated broadcasting
• Magazine-type TV shows linked to interactive Web site
• TV viewers drawn to Web site, Web visitors drawn to TV series
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The Business Café TV Shows
• Set in Tower overlooking City of London
• Broadcast each Sunday for 9 weeks
• February- April 1999
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The Business Café TV Shows
• Weekly feature on set discussion and filmed Case study
• Taxi ride- business figure in the news in black cab• Office of my own- different ways of using office
space• Opinions on business books• Stock-market discussion
• Promotion of the Web site
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The Business Café Web Site
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The Business Café Web Site
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The Business Café TVAudience
• 300,000 visitors per week
• 8% of total TV audience
• middle & senior manager & small business people
• every industrial sector and managerial job
• 35-54
• some interested in OUBS courses
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The Business Café Web site Visitors
• 60,000 visits over 9 weeks
• 42% visited on day of TV broadcast
• two-thirds were prompted by TV broadcast
• Some visitors used site who were outside broadcast range, interest continues
• One third clicked through to general OUBS information site
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The Business Café-Online Discussion
• Used Web based FirstClass environment
• Trained moderators
• Information about visitors and nature of discussions reported weekly on TV shows
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The Business Café Web Site: attractions
• Selected URLs linked with weekly features on TV show
• Easy to use questionnaires
• Download of “Business Briefings”
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Evaluation by Stakeholders -TV Shows
Well received:
TV “case studies”
Imaginative filming techniques
Lively, interesting, magazine format
good presenter
topical issues
weekly market commentary
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Evaluation by Stakeholders -TV Shows
Improve for Next Time
Reduce trivialisation of topics
Better scheduling slot
Better set
Better advert for Web site
Increase publicity
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Evaluation by Stakeholders - The Business Café Web Site
Improve for Next Time
Simpler design
Better threading for discussion forum
more interactive questionnaires
shorter video clips
links to OUBS community discussions
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Evaluation by Stakeholders - The Business Café Web Site
Worked Well:
Downloadable documents to support “TV feature”
Easy maintenance and updating, good technical infrastructure
Easy interaction online discussion with good moderators
Links to other sites
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The Business Café Project - Conclusions to share
• Convergence of broadcasting and Web= worthwhile for education
• It’s tough to do - build up cross team working from the start
• Ensure academics understand time commitment
• Ensure TV understand and respect academic approach
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Lessons from the Business Café- Asynchronous Learning
Networks
• Create “serials” on TV to entice associated Web visitors
• Create controversy in online discussion to pull in participants
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Lessons from the Business Café- the toughest part
Better cross team integration needed for a better integrated Business Café experience- especially between TV production Team and academics
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URL
Business Café:
http://www.open.ac.uk/businesscafe
Papers about the Business Café project
http://oubs.open.ac.uk/gilly
E mail Dr. Gilly Salmon